One of the classic images of Devils Tower seen in famous movies is the one from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I have always wanted to see this with my own eyes, and decided that we would visit Devils Tower on our way back home on our cross country trip. It was a little out of the way for our final destination for the day (Badlands National Park) but I was glad that I did it.

Devils Tower is quite a large formation that sticks out of the landscape and it is surrounded by plains. Despite that, you can't get a good glimpse of it until you are almost there. The wind was blowing so hard that I had to hold onto my tripod to keep it from blowing over. There isn't a bad angle to shoot the tower from, as the flat land that surrounds it makes it stand out. The main difference in the views are the foreground. Looking at it from the east, there are fields of grass. This composition looking south towards the tower shows a more rugged foreground with hills and trees. No matter how you look at it, Devils Tower is well worth a side trip.